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Default Methods

Overview

In addition to the default constructor, every class gets a few default methods. These are inherited from the Object class. The default versions are almost never what you want, so you'll want to override them with new definitions. Built-in classes like Integer, String, and ArrayList have sensible versions of these methods.

toString

The toString method returns a String that represents this object in a human-readable way. What that means varies from one class to another. For a typical Point class with instance variables x and y, the toString method might be defined like this:

public String toString() {
    return "<" + x + ", " + y + ">";
}

Now new Point(3, 4).toString() has the value "<3, 4>".

In some common situations where a String is expected, such as concatenating Strings with + or calling println, if a non-String object is supplied, its toString method is called automatically. This means that, instead of

System.out.println(p.toString());

you can simply say:

System.out.println(p);

equals

a.equals(b) should return true if a and b are equal in the sense of having the same values for their instance variables. This must be defined for each class because testing the equality of complicated instance variables (such as arrays) can be tricky. Also, some classes may ignore some instance variables; for example, a Car class might define equals to consider make, model, and year but not miles.

There's a surprising amount going on in a proper equals method, so it's usually best to let the IDE generate the method. Here's the one that IntelliJ generates for the Point class:

public boolean equals(Object o) {
    if (this == o) return true;
    if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
    Point point = (Point) o;
    return x == point.x &&
            y == point.y;
}

First notice that the type of the parameter is Object. This is neccessary because you are overriding the default method so your version has to have the same signature. If you were to make the paramater type Point, you would merely be overloading the method and the default method, which would still exist. This could lead to surprising bugs.

The first line inside the method checks to see if this and the parameter o are the same object. If they are ==, they must be equals, so you can return true immediately. This line is not strictly necessary, but it saves some computation for this common case.

The next line checks for two conditions that would allow you to immediately return false. Since this can never be null, if o is null then they cannot be equals. Also, if this and o are not instances of the same class, they cannot be equals.

Having established that o is a Point (even though it is stored in a parameter of type Object), you now cast it to a Point and store that in a local variable called point.

Finally, you actually compare the instance variables.

The default version of equals behaves like ==: a.equals(b) only returns true if a and b are the same object.

@Override

It is good style, though not required, to add @Override before your definition of any method you are overriding. This allows the compiler to catch certain bugs. For example, if you accidentally called your method tostring instead of toString, the compiler would give you the error message "Method does not override method from its superclass.".

Resources

Questions

  1. ⭐ Name a default method.
  2. ⭐⭐ What does the default version of toString do?
  3. ⭐⭐ Why provide a toString method instead of a print method?
  4. ⭐⭐ Isn't it bad style in the generated equals method to have a variable named o and omit the curly braces in the if statements?
  5. ⭐⭐ Would this work as an equals method for any class? 
    @Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
    return this.toString().equals(obj.toString());
}
  6. ⭐⭐⭐ When you ask your IDE to generate equals, it also wants to generate a method called hashCode. What's up with that?
  7. ⭐⭐⭐ Suppose you define the equals method for Point like this: 
    public boolean equals(Point that) {
    if (that == null) {
        return false;
    }
    return x == that.x && y == that.y;
}
    Now you define: 
    Point a = new Point(1, 2);
Object b = new Point(1, 2);
Point c = new Point(1, 2);
    What is a.equals(b)? What is a.equals(c)? What is b.equals(c)?

Answers

  1. equals, toString.

  2. For the Point class, it returns something like Point@49e4cb85, which is the name of the class, @, and a representation of the object's original location in memory. This is rarely useful.

  3. You might want to do something with the String other than printing it, such as writing it to a file or (in a test) comparing it to another String.

  4. I think so.

  5. No. This would throw a NullPointerExceptoin if obj was null. It might also return true in some situations where this and obj are instances of different classes. Finally, for some objects containing very large data structures, it might either give incorrect answers or be woefully inefficient (depending on how toString is defined).

  6. hashCode is used by a data structure called a hash table. That data structure depends on the behavior of equals and hashCode being similar in certain ways, so if you override one you should override the other. Until you start using hash tables you can ignore this extra method.

  7. false, true, and false respectively. This suprising behavior depends on the fact that Object is a polymorphic type, which can hold an instance of any class. The type of the variable need not match the type of the object to which it refers. Specifically, b is of type Object, but refers to an instance of Point. When deciding which version of an overloaded method to use, Java generally looks at variable types, except where there is overriding. Here:

    • In a.equals(b), Java sees that a, a Point, has one version of equals that takes an Object and another that takes a Point. Since the variable type of b is Object, the default version of equals is used.
    • In a.equals(c), Java uses your version since the variable type of c is Point.
    • In b.equals(c), Java sees that b, an Object, has only the default version of equals, which it uses.

    To avoid this very confusing result, make sure your equals method takes an Object.